Chapter 23

"Listen to your body, Frodo. Do not bear down unless your muscles tell you to. You must not try to rush things," Elrond warned as Frodo grunted and felt an irresistible urge to push downwards. "And do not hold your breath."

So many instructions to remember. He was on his hands and knees again, finding it the most comfortable position when he felt the need to push . . . if any position could be called, "comfortable". The intensity of the pains had eased and Frodo felt that he had regained some control over the situation. The shaking and nausea had faded too and he was sure that he could feel the baby inching down his body with each push he gave. How could ladies go through this more than once?

Elrond was behind him and Frodo could feel a warm compress easing the taut skin between his birth canal and his back passage. Pain returned and Frodo tried to hold back as another sensation became apparent. No…he could not empty his bowels at a time like this. But it was too late . . . He cried out in despair as he felt something expelled from his back passage.

"I'm sorry . . . I didn't mean to. I am so sorry."

The Elrond's voice was calm and reassuring as he moved to wash his hands, and Elrohir wiped away the evidence with clean cloths.

"Frodo . . . you have not embarrassed us. This often happens as the baby descends and the head puts pressure on your bowels. You actually expelled very little and you are clean now. It is unlikely to happen again as Bilbo tells me you were emptying your bowels regularly during the early stages." There was a slight note of chiding in the elf's voice as he continued. "The loose evacuation of your bowels was a good sign that the babe was on the way . . . which I could have reassured you of . . . if you had advised me at the time."

Frodo would have glared at his uncle if he could have mustered the strength. Had he no secrets? Apparently not. No secrets and no dignity left.

Elrohir returned with a receptacle and Frodo relieved himself thankfully, feeling more comfortable now that at least was taken care of, and not quite as worried about embarrassing himself. Although he was almost amazed that he could still be embarrassed about anything after the past few hours. Was it only hours? It felt like days and days.

Elrond exchanged a cooling compress for another warm one and Frodo was grateful for the feeling of someone there, caring and ready to help when needed. He was sure the time must be close. He hoped the time was close because he truly was running out of strength.

An iron arm wrapped itself around his lower body, squeezing in and down relentlessly and as Frodo concentrated upon Bilbo's face he was only vaguely aware of Elrond talking quietly to Elrohir.

" . . . not much room . . . be careful . . . avoid tearing or cutting . . . control the push . . . crowning . . ."

With one final squeeze the arm relaxed and Frodo found that Elrond was addressing him now, as Elrohir temporarily took over the task of support. The healer lifted one of Frodo's hands and guided it back, to touch the area between his legs.

"The head is showing, Frodo. A few more pushes like that and it will be through. Here . . ."

Frodo's fingers found a wide round opening and pushed up against it was a warm, wrinkled and slippery . . . something. He burst into tears of wondrous delight as he explored and met Bilbo's questioning gaze.

"He has hair, Bilbo. Calimore has hair!"

There was no more time for celebration as the next pain surged but now Frodo seemed to find a new reserve of strength and readily slipped into rhythm with his body. Elrond's fingers worked carefully around his opening . . . now stretching the flesh gently . . . now holding the head back to slow it's pressure on the taut skin. It felt to Frodo sometimes, as though he were trying to push the head through a tight ring of fire and, even in his present extremis, the irony of such an analogy was not lost on him. He listened to Elrond's prompting, trying to control his body's need to end the pain by delivering this baby quickly.

"I do not want your flesh to tear, Frodo. When I tell you to pant I want you to breathe in and out more quickly and resist the urge to push. It will be difficult for you, but necessary."

And, as usual, Elrond was right. It was difficult to fight his body and his mind. He so wanted to end the agony and embrace his baby, but Frodo managed to hold back when instructed. As another pain subsided, and he finished pushing, Elrond spoke the words he had wanted to hear for so long.

"Come and touch your babe's face, Frodo." His hand was guided back once more and his fingers explored in amazed awe the eyelashes, nose and mouth of his baby's head. Even as he touched it Frodo felt another movement and the face turned to one side. He was drawn into pushing, once more and a little while later Frodo gasped in relief as he felt something slide from his body.

"I have him, Frodo," Elrond announced, quietly as Bilbo and Elrohir turned Frodo onto his back at last. He was propped against his Uncle's chest as Elrond pushed up Frodo's shirt to expose his still large belly and laid upon it a grey, slippery and unmoving figure, still attached by a pulsing chord to his parent. In Elrond's hand, the child had seemed little more than the size of a large kitten.

"He . . . he's . . . not breathing," Frodo whimpered in despair. It had all been for nothing. The Ring had won. Elrond took Frodo's hands at once and laid them upon Calimore's grey skin.

"Massage him gently. He is well. He just needs a little encouragement to take his first breath. He has to feel as loved and wanted out here as he was within you."

To his surprise, Frodo found his babe's skin warm and as he stroked his fingers gently across the slippery back the tiny mouth opened and issued a small mew. Before his disbelieving eyes the grey skin began to pink and one tiny hand formed a fist. So taken was he with this miracle that he was not even aware of Elrond tying off and cutting the natal chord until Calimore was lifted away from his belly wiped, and wrapped in a warm towel. Elrohir opened Frodo's shirt to expose his chest and Elrond laid Calimore in his parent's eager and waiting arms.

"He's beautiful, Bilbo," Frodo murmured, his fingers twirling one damp little curl. He felt Bilbo chuckle behind him.

"Looks like a skinned coney," he murmured, but when Frodo tilted his head back in indignation he found his uncle smiling down at him. The smile widened. "Of course he's beautiful. He's a Baggins," Bilbo amended, stroking the damp downy hair on one pink foot.

"You should feed him, Frodo. It will help with the next stage of the birthing. The chord and that which it is attached to must be expelled." As he spoke, Elrond drew Frodo's shirt a little wider, to expose one small breast.

If his body had the energy left Frodo was sure that his face would have been blushing. As it was the parent simply held his breast as he had been instructed before and rubbed the nipple a little clumsily against the tiny pink bow of Calimore's upper lip. In true hobbit style, the babe opened his mouth wide and Elrond helped Frodo tilt him to the nipple.

The parent's eyes opened wide as Calimore latched on and began to tug firmly, his button nose pushed up hard against Frodo's pale skin. For a second there was a pause as two bright blue eyes flickered open and gazed up, focussing dazedly for the first time upon those of exactly the same hue staring down at him . . . and Frodo knew at once that the soul tie had not been cut with Calimore's birthing. Though their relationship may grow and shift through the years, this love would never change.

For several minutes silence reclaimed the room and all faces kept returning to the pair on the bed. Frodo had eyes only for the tiny, figure suckling at his chest. Calimore's thick lashes rested upon his cheeks once more and the small squirming movements that he had made at first were slowing, as was his suckling. Apart from one tiny mew of alarm at his first indrawn breath the only other sounds that had come from the babe were those of suckling, interspersed now with tiny grunts of contentment.

Calimore had brought the dawn and thin winter sunlight was trying to sneak around the edges of the curtains at the windows but Elrond made no move to open them. Frodo and his babe would need to sleep soon. It had not been a long labour, by the standards of most first birthings, but the Ringbearer was not as hale as he once was and so the relatively short labour was an unexpected mercy. Now much advanced in years, Bilbo too, was feeling the strain of the past twenty-four hours, although he still sat behind his nephew, smiling. Elrond beckoned to his son when he saw a flicker of surprised pain cross Frodo's face.

"Frodo . . . can I take Calimore for you. You have a little more work to do, I am afraid." Elrond reached out, bringing two fingers to rest lightly upon the crown of the babe's head. With one final sated grunt, Calimore's tiny mouth slid away from the nipple. Frodo would have protested at his child's departure, but his pain intensified and Bilbo moved to help him onto hands and knees again as Elrond laid the now sleeping babe in his cradle by the fire.

"This will need the same movements that you used to push Calimore, Frodo," Elrond murmured as Elrohir brought a basin. "Your body is simply disposing of the natal chord and the organ that attached you to your babe. They are no longer required."

It took only a few minutes this time, before a small solid mass, the remains of the natal chord still attached, lay in the basin between Frodo's knees. The elves were about to help him lie down again when his face contorted in pain once more.

Elrond reached for another basin and Elrohir moved to help support Frodo, as Bilbo was by now too exhausted himself to be of much further use in that roll. He bathed his nephew's face and rubbed his shoulders instead, unaware that there was anything amiss until he saw the worry hovering on the younger elf's brow.

Frodo knew little beyond the persistent squeezing cramps that rippled through his abdomen but Bilbo watched in alarm as Elrond placed a hand over Frodo's, still swollen belly, and tilted his head . . . as though listening. When the keen grey eyes looked up they showed some concern. He tried to speak to Frodo . . . bound up in his exhausted struggle . . . but the hobbit was only vaguely aware of his words and could certainly spare no breath to respond.

"What is happening, Elrond?" Bilbo hissed as he wiped Frodo's lips. The unfortunate lad had just spilled the meagre contents of his stomach. Predominantly water, fortunately.

Moving to Frodo's rear once more, Elrond concentrated upon wiping away more blood as the small frame trembled and strained. Frodo heard an edge of uncertainty in his voice that had not been evident before.

"It is usual . . . to be a shedding . . . organ that . . . basin earlier. Beyond that . . . bleeding . . . few days . . . end of the matter."

Frodo screamed, clinging desperately to Elrohir's support as his stomach muscles contracted violently, and from the crib Calimore's weak cries echoed his. Elrond slid another basin beneath Frodo, along with several towels, and continued to wipe away the blood as a strangely shaped mass began to protrude from the birth canal.

"It . . . not be possible . . . push . . . but it is happening . . . expelling the organ . . . sheltered Calimore . . . months. Unfortunately . . . already weakened. Ready . . . instruments . . . help him."

Calimore's cries were the last thing Frodo heard before another steel band contracted about his belly and that was the final impetus that plunged him down into blissful nothingness.

TBC